Heel
by Uakari
Summary: All of those wasted emotions...such warmth and affection for someone who isn't even real.


**Notes:** Written for Konungarike, who, despite having a cruel streak a mile wide when it comes to prompts, is quite lovely in every other way XD

**Warnings:** blood, violence, angst

* * *

He's tasted blood before. Any soldier worth his salt knows that licking your wounds isn't only for animals, and without healing magic to rely on, he's been left in the thick of battle with only his wits and saliva more times than he cares to count. He knows the taste, the texture, the way his tongue lifts and presses back into his palate to avoid the unpleasant tang. Or at least he _knew_ these things, back _then_, when life may not have been any easier, but still made a modicum of sense.

Nothing has the decency to make sense anymore, least of all his own body. If it _is_ still his own, and not just a vague approximation. His eye is the most obvious traitor, fading to yellow and narrowing its pupil to a slit at the barest waver of his emotions, but even this has nothing on the treachery of his other senses. Even now, with the knife still hovering millimeters above Kurogane's arm, he can feel them kicking into overdrive. His tongue is fat and thick in his mouth, blocking much of his airway and leaving him rasping and panting like some rabid dog. His salivary glands are doing their best to fill the rest of his mouth. He might drool. He _won't_ drool. He has more dignity than that, even if it is a struggle to maintain.

And of course, there is the ever-present fluttering in his belly. Fluttering that he knows full well will twist and coil into knots the second blood spills out over the edge of the knife and cripple any willpower he might have had to resist.

_Resist? _

_Now there was a fucking joke._

He's never lusted after his food before. Never met a roast that set the blood burning in his cheeks or shudders tracking down his spine. Never felt lightheaded in the presence of salad greens. But that's exactly what this is (he isn't blind enough to pretend otherwise, as tempting as it may be), and it is the single most appalling betrayal this vampire's body has slung at him.

Kurogane slides the knife across his skin, and the room suddenly feels much smaller.

Composure. _Composure_.

He stalks across the few feet of tiled floor separating them, to where Kurogane sits on one of their flimsy, throw-away dining chairs. That familiar half-smirk is still plastered across his face. So fucking righteous. So fucking irritating. Fay snarls as he snatches Kurogane's arm from its resting place on his knee – he's not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing how badly this affects him. How badly he wants this.

It's difficult to maintain a properly somber expression as his tongue sweeps along the divot just above Kurogane's wrist, lapping up the blood that has pooled there, and even more so as his lips track back upward to the cut itself (high enough to avoid snapping tendons this time, though it would serve him right to lose a finger or two). The blood flows in earnest, warm and sweet, but also a million other things that food ought not to be. Kindness. Worry. _Love_. He shouldn't be able to taste these things, but his tongue senses them just as keenly as he's always felt them from the big brute. He swallows a mouthful and tries not to scoff. What else should he expect from a child who confuses rage for strength and charity for compassion? Worse, he probably believes all of it. Every last bit of it . And for a split second, as the blood flows down his throat, _he_ believes it, too.

_His stomach churns._

All of those wasted emotions – such warmth and affection for someone who isn't even real.

_He's going to be ill._

It takes a moment to register that Kurogane is growling and hissing at him, and still another to figure out why. He hasn't bitten, hasn't even delved his tongue too roughly against the wound. His lips are motionless, pressed tight in a vain effort to keep the contents of his gut in place-

"Your foot, idiot."

He blinks, slowly sinking back to himself, and shifts just enough to realize that he's dug the heel of his boot into the meat of Kurogane's inner thigh. His much abused thigh, already raw and bruised from the day's tournament.

_Serves him right. _

_Magnanimous bastard._

"Sorry," he mumbles, without any real remorse. He drops Kurogane's arm and moves to step away, but somewhere midstride he thinks better of it and catches the underside of the seat with his toe.

Kurogane tumbles backward like a ragdoll and lays there, sprawled, disbelieving he's been caught off guard. Or maybe just disbelieving that this is his thanks. Either way, it's just enough of a window for Fai to dig the same boot heel into his chest.

_It would be so easy to crush him_, he muses as he leans forward to hook a finger into the silver ring hanging from Kurogane's tournament collar. He debates telling him this – plays with the thought like a child's toy. All of that muscle mass that was once impressive for all its raw power, all of those hours spent training for what he now could see was just a weak, human physique that would fold like an insect under his thumb. And he had _paid for this_.

_God, but that was funny._

_Funnier still that this is the only way his traitorous body seems to obey him._

"What are you laughing at?" Kurogane demands from below. He's angry – red faced and practically steaming – but not fighting back, which takes most of the fun out of this little misadventure.

Fay sighs and eases back onto his other foot. "Nothing," he insists, even though he can feel a grin pulling at his lips, "Must be your blood." He wipes at the corner of his mouth. "Embarrassing."

"_Tche_." Kurogane strains beneath his foot, trying to hoist himself onto his elbows. Fay eases his heel up, just enough to let him think he might be succeeding, but holds all the tighter onto the collar ring.

He yanks it again, just to watch those red eyes snap back to focus on him. There are a million things he could say, face to face like this – a million things he wants to say, each more awful than the last. In the end, he settles for drawing a deep breath and holding it for a long moment while the words form on his tongue:

"Goodnight, _Kurogane_."

His finger slips from the chain link, just as the toe of his boot catches under Kurogane's jaw, tilting his head back as it collides with the floor. Without another sound, he turns and stalks off to bed.


End file.
